Men and Monsters: Metempsychosis. by Perfectly Insane

Ok then, this will be a fun story to talk about. So, you know how I was joking about The Doom That Comes To Canterlot being a crossover? Well… have any of you guys read/watched Tokyo Ghoul? Do you remember how season one ended with basically the torturiest of porn? Yeah, this is how this starts. This story earns the warning tag it has, it’s actually missing violence and death. I can't make this intro funny for once, not unless I want to incur the ire of most everyone. Here we follow the story of Pinkie Pie as her dad decides to put her through an experience that makes Silent Hill 2 look like Alone in the Dark: Illumination. This is some of the most intense and detailed descriptions of gore and violence I have read since, well, The Pinkamena Chronicles.

So, what did I like? This story was willing to make me feel uncomfortable. Not too many authors are willing to just go full bore into making everything a bit horrible all around and embrace the grim-dark. I am one of those people that wants unhappy endings and general suckage. Next, on the topic of survival, I am an Eagle Scout, and have several books relating to the topic, so I was actually surprised that there was that little bit of accuracy to how one is meant to handle surviving in the woods. While it wasn’t a full ‘this is the optimum path’ survival, it was well done.

And with that, we move on to what I didn't like. First off, the intro to the story was a bit of a mess. Starting in medias res is a way to tell a story that is often encouraged, but when the intro hits me with seven questions out the gate, there is a problem. You always want to hook your readers, get them invested in what your story is about, but you don't want to bombard them with a million and one things before they even get an idea about what your premise is. Imagine if you will, The Lord Of The Rings, except rather than the movie starting with the exposition setting up the world of starting in The Shire, we start with the battle of Minas Tirith and Frodo in Mordor. With the spooky ghosts, Witch King, Eye of Sauron, the one ring, Gandolf, and if the scene got extended to the end of the battle, the releasing of the ghosts from an oath. Just imagine watching that without any context. Would you come away interested in learning more or say fuck it and resign yourself to a movie that was likely going to be obtuse or just not watch the rest of it? Honestly, the whole first chapter could be cut and there would not be a problem. 

Furthermore, This story had the same problem as The Pinkamena Chronicles, a main character that becomes One Punch Man, but without the irony. Let me tell you a bit about how to balance a character to make them just that wee bit more interesting. My main character for A New Life is a ‘37-year-old, veteran military’ hunter from Bloodborne, someone who is skilled enough at the murder when compared to those in the MLP universe, he just oozes ‘I can kill you should I choose’. Do I portray him as untouchable? No, that isn't interesting, I introduce him by having him almost die and then have him fight something that almost kills him when he gets to Equestria. I establish that he can be beaten, he can be killed, hell, he even has a missing eye that he describes as being indescribably painful. This is how he is introduced. Now, let's compare this to how ‘Pinkamina’ is introduced/written. Kills 3 wolves (by herself and bear-handed), survives a forest she knows nothing about, withstands brutal rape and torture for a month, survived a genetic experiment that has killed everyone else, and takes out dozens of trained killers because said genetic experiment has made her nigh unkillable and the killers are idiots. This isn’t interesting, this is a Mary Sue disguised as a developed character because she got the piss beaten out of her. (I should also note that none of said killers were carrying guns, let alone ones that would have guaranteed a kill; .44, .30-06, .308, .45, .50, hell, even a .30-30 would cause enough damage to incapacitate her if it struck the torso). I can actually stomach, and find this kind of violence and general ‘M-ness’ to be appealing, but there is just something here that's just off-putting to me.

And finally, we have the writing. This was bad. I’m not going to sugar coat this, there were a myriad of issues, chief among them was in dialogue. No, you do not do this:

"It's been a week Discord, what's happened to her?"

Blake said solemnly, sitting in a chair beside Pinkamena, a worried look on his face.

The ‘“words” said X’ needs to be together in the same paragraph. This was driving me up a wall the entire time I was reading this. Added on, the structure is less than ideal. There are dozens of areas where the writing needs to be trimmed and reworked to flow right. 

[A moss shelter is, to my knowledge, not in itself ideal. The thing you are looking to do for trapping heat is to mitigate air-flow. Moss sheets accomplish this, yes, but the same principle applies for mud and thick coverings of leaves. As for protection from rain and snow, this is a yes and no. In light rain, yes, the moss will absorb the water and prevent it from falling through, but once the level of precipitation exceeds the level of absorption, the roof will begin to leak. Finally, you use the same amount of wood when making an A-frame shelter (what Pinkie made) with and without roofing (the exception being woven branch roofing) as you need a dense collection of sticks to assure that the roofing remains attached to the frame. The one property of moss as a roofing that wasn’t mentioned but is unique to it is its improved ability to regulate humidity and temperature. Also, massively personal gripe, can we please stop perpetuating the notion that wolves are vicious killers that will eat you the second you turn your back? Humans being attacked by non-rabid wolves is extremely rare, additionally, we look nothing like their natural prey so they are actually more fearful/curious of us if they have not had prior exposure. I am writing an entire story based on (timber)wolves and have done/am doing extensive research on the topic so it does pain me a bit to see this. Additionally, a body; given the factors we are presented with, would belong to someone that died less than a week ago, 3 days tops. So the sisters' time of death makes no sense to me.] 

{I hope you all are happy, I’m probably on a list now after looking up decomposition information for over two hours.}

Final Scores;

Writing; 6/10, This pained me to read at several points. The combination of not following one of the rules of dialogue and the not exactly rare events were things were worded fairly awkwardly did not do me good. 

Pacing; 8/10, It’s hard to explain, but when the first chapter just floods me with information I have no context for, and then decides to treat me to some top tier torture porn for 80% of the story, even I get just that little bit uncomfortable. If the full-throttle ‘lets go Josef Mengele on Pinkie’ wasn’t so present, I might see this as one of the more well-paced stories I have read.

Characters; 5/10, The villains are captain planet levels of fleshed out and sympathetic, the main character is Superman, and ironically, the only character that has even an ounce of dimensionality and ability to elicit sympathy is Discord.

Darkness; 7/10, This is dark, but I don't feel like the darkness is being used to add to the story; it feels like it’s just there to go ham on Pinkie for no reason other than ‘make the world feel like shit and plot.’

Atmosphere; 7/10, See Darkness. It just goes overboard with how dark and evil everything is that it stops being a 40K grim-dark fest and starts becoming a stereotype for the genre.

Total score; 33/50 or 6.66/10, This story needs two things bad; an editor and just that slight bit more levity. We start with everything being shit and we end with everything being shit but also with rape and insanity.

This is quite a thorough review, which is exactly what I wanted. I do appreciate your honestly. The only thing I can say is that it does get better. I do have an editor now and I have a better understanding of writing and story telling as a whole. The sequel is better in terms of writing for sure, but it is honestly one of those “gets better as it goes” kind of thing.

This was also one of my first stories ever, so my writing experience was next to 0 when I wrote this. I still am improving as a writer, so any and all feedback is extremely appreciated.